Asking the Wrong Questions Part 1: "Is This a Good Photo?"

Or, How to Ask Better Questions About Creative Output for Business

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this conversation in my career.

Scene: A client—or potential client—shows me an image, video, graphic, tagline, or bit of copy or potential hire’s portfolio and asks, “Is this good?”

It’s a straightforward question on the surface, but the answer is anything but simple.

I can tell you if it's technically bad immediately; taken by a person with who is immediately unskilled, but "good?" That's a different metric.

It’s Not About Pretty Pictures

Here’s the thing: while I’ve spent much of my career working alongside creatives and even count art as a personal hobby, I’m not an art critic, a gallery curator, or a museum professional. I’m a digital business development consultant, and my lens for evaluating creative work isn’t only aesthetics—it’s business and how much the creatives earn back in sales (actual money) and what the purpose of the creative output is.

If the creative output in question is intended for marketing or branding, the question isn’t whether the image, video, or design is “good” in the artistic sense. It’s whether it works. Whether it’s EFFECTIVE

Does it achieve its purpose? Does it help sell the product or communicate the brand’s unique value? Did the ad make the client money? Did the webpage sell the product? Did the image answer the viewer’s questions? Did it do its specific job?

The Difference Between Art and Business Creativity

Art is about subjective beauty, personal expression, and emotional resonance. Marketing creativity, on the other hand, is about results. It’s not just about being visually appealing; it’s about being effective as a marketing tool.

When evaluating creative work for business purposes, I can immediately spot the basics:

• Does the photographer understand lighting and composition?
• Is the copywriter’s grammar solid, or are they misusing their title?
• Does the graphic designer understand balance and hierarchy?

These are the fundamentals, and they’re easy to critique. I can immediately tell you what’s bad or unskilled. But whether the creative piece is good—whether it’s effective—requires much more context.

It’s All About the Brief

To truly evaluate a piece of marketing or branding content, I need to know:

• What’s the brief? What was the creator tasked to achieve?
• What are the goals of the campaign?
• Who is the target demographic?
• What are the USPs (unique selling propositions) of the product or service?
• How does it fit into the larger branding strategy?
• What’s the market and competitive landscape?

Without this context, you’re not asking me to evaluate the effectiveness of the creative—you’re asking for a gut reaction to its surface-level appearance.

It’s Not Art. It’s Sales. It's Advertising. It's Branding.

Creative work in advertising, marketing, and branding isn’t about being pretty, clever, or technically flawless. It’s about answering a brief. It’s about strategy, logic, and achieving specific objectives.

Think of it this way: asking me to evaluate a photo or portfolio for business without providing the context is like asking me to rate an Uber driver before the ride even starts. Sure, I can tell you if the car is clean and the driver’s on time, but I can’t tell you if they’ll get you to your destination safely and efficiently.

A great piece of creative content may look like art and it may look, frankly, like a mess, but its purpose isn’t artistic. It’s functional. It’s built to drive engagement, communicate a message, and ultimately generate revenue.

If the creative work doesn’t do that—no matter how stunning it looks—it’s not a good photo, video, or graphic for business.

So the next time you’re asking a pro to evaluate creative output for you, understand that we're looking at the 360 marketing or branding, and don’t start with, “Is this good?” Instead, start with arming us with the answers to the following questions:

• “What’s the goal?”
• “Who is this for?”
• “Does this achieve the BUSINESS result we need?”
• "Did it or will it probably make us money?"

Because in business, it’s not about beauty—it’s about quantifiable results.

And then and only then can we tell you if it's "good".